You call this cold?!?

At 6:00 am this wintery Friday morning I stood in front of my bathroom mirror lathering Vaseline on my face. It was an old trick I'd learned from my Norwegian mountaineer friend, Chuck Gustafson. He’s winter camped, cross-country skied and snow shoed in the Cascade and Olympic Mountains for over thirty years and the skin on his face is still as soft as a baby’s.
I had already put on my long johns and fleece vest and decided at the last minute to wear my Gore-Tex rain pants over my biking tights. Like a knight preparing for battle, I slipped my knit neck warmer over my head, trying not to touch the grease on my face. I was thankful that the Norwegian cure for wind burn was Vaseline and not whale blubber.
We met our friends, Mike and Jerry, at 6:45 on Lincoln Avenue and biked five miles to the Daley Plaza where we got free coffee and a piece of semi-frozen Eli’s cheesecake. This was the Chicago Winter Bike to Work day. January 18 was the anniversary of the coldest recorded date here in Chicago: 27 below. It was more than thirty degrees warmer this morning, and for the first mile I was nice and toasty. But although I was wearing Gore-Tex mittens, a wool hat under my helmet, smart wool socks and all the other accouterments I had gathered for winter biking my fingers and cheeks soon began to ache. By the time we pedaled into the Loop I was stiffening despite my lube job. But seeing about fifty other cyclists gathering around the Chicago Bike Federation's tent and downing some of their coffee, I began to warm up. Channel 2 TV was there and interviewed Jerry. We took our perfunctory group photo next to the Picasso then headed to the Wishbone restaurant for their early bird breakfast special. This is what I call “Wintering in Chicago!”